FINDING ME - FIXING YOU SEQUEL

01

"Let's go find out!" Rachel reached for my hand. I let her snatched it up without a fight and she led the way to the cafe through the back entrance of the castle. We walked right past the theater room. I heard what sounded like the frog from Princess and The Frog talking. I love that movie. I sucked my teeth in disappointment that I was missing it.

After all these Saturday's someone chooses to show up on the day Princess and The Frog is showing.

"Rachel, will you please tell me who it is?" I groaned, desperate to know when we were only a few steps away from the tall wooden doors that led to the cafe. I couldn't run to my room as badly as I wanted to. I knew that I needed to face whoever was behind those doors. But couldn't I at least know who to expect?

What if it's my father? I'm not ready to face him yet! I need more time. I haven't decided how I feel about him just yet. Am I mad? Hurt? Thankful? I don't know!

"Oh, I don't know!" Rachel finally admitted. "They don't tell us who's coming just that someone's come." She laughed, "I forgot this is your first time! I'm sorry!" She quickly apologized for her bluntness. "Was that hurtful? You know my brain is partially melted from the you know-" She shrugged it off, laughing as she skipped away.

"Alright.." I sighed deeply, agreeing that she did have valid reasons behind her odd behavior. "Anyways.." I tried to build the strength to walk through the doors. My knees were about to buckle beneath me. "Be strong. You're a strong ass bitch. Be strong." I snapped at myself. I fixed my hair, adjusting the baggy pair of sweatpants hanging off my hips.

I heard footsteps that sounded like they were coming from the other side of the door. I listened, frozen in place as whoever it was got closer and closer. "Oh God," I uttered to myself. This is so intense!

Why is this so intense?

I looked up just in time to look into the eyes of someone that I didn't expect to see. "Jackie?" My father's wife stood only a few inches above me. With her hair slicked back into a perfect long braid hanging past her waist. She was wearing a lavender mini skirt that ended just above her knees. Her blazer was the exact same shade of lavender and was buttoned all the way up. I remembered then that Jackie is usually the best dressed woman in the room. Lavender is definitely her color too. It pops perfectly against her melanin skin.

I miss getting dolled up. But I know the time for that will come again eventually. 

"Noah," Jackie greeted me with a smile. "I thought I heard someone tallking out here." I followed behind her, admiring the white heels on her feet. "I started to think you weren't going to show." She hummed, taking her place at a table that her purse was sitting on top of. She must've picked this table while waiting for me.

"Someone's come to visit me for the first time in five months and you think I just wouldn't show up?" I laughed. I was being serious and a bit sarcastic too. But I did wonder if she seriously thought that I wouldn't show yet she still came all the way here to try anyways. I'm not exactly sure where this place sits on the map but I know it isn't down the road from my father's estate. My point is Jackie wasn't just in the neighborhood and decided to pop by. There's a reason she came to visit me.

A good reason. Or a bad, depending on what it is.

Jackie said, "I want to apologize for that on behalf of your father, Edward. He talks to me about you all time. He's just a man." The sides of her lips pirked up and she sighed, "men block out any sign of emotion that isn't anger or sexual."

I understood what she said about emotionless, sex crazed angry men but I refused to accept an apology that was supposedly from Edward that didn't even come from his mouth. You ship your only child off to a rehab hidden far away from civilization in the hundred acre wood after months of leaving her alone to fend for herself and deal with an addiction on her own. Yet you can't show up to deliver an apology on your own?